


desire is a thing I might die for

by crookedspoon



Category: The Locked Tomb Trilogy | Gideon the Ninth Series - Tamsyn Muir
Genre: Anal Sex, Established Relationship, Exhibitionism, Holly Poly, Multi, POV Naberius Tern, Threesome - F/F/M, Twincest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-24
Updated: 2021-01-24
Packaged: 2021-03-12 15:41:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28637958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crookedspoon/pseuds/crookedspoon
Summary: "Why the dismayed look, Babs?" Ianthe, that evil witch, drawls, her grin awful like the devil. Though even the devil would have more mercy on Naberius than Ianthe could muster in a lifetime. "Here I would have thought you'd enjoy this as much as Corona does."
Relationships: Naberius Tern/Coronabeth Tridentarius/Ianthe Tridentarius
Comments: 8
Kudos: 21
Collections: Holly Poly 2020





	desire is a thing I might die for

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TheseusInTheMaze](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheseusInTheMaze/gifts).



Naberius has always known the twins would be the death of him – it's part and parcel of what being a cavalier is all about. His life before theirs. That is the only noble end in store for him.

Or it would be, perhaps, if he were sworn to _normal_ necromancers rather than two bored princesses who seem intent on making his life miserable at every turn.

"Why the dismayed look, Babs?" Ianthe, that evil witch, drawls, her grin awful like the devil. Though even the devil would have more mercy on him than Ianthe could muster in a lifetime. "Here I thought you'd enjoy this as much as Corona does."

Instead of answering, her sister just gasps, head falling back against Ianthe's shoulder. She's squirming, pressing her thighs together and drawing her knees up to her chest, giving him a better view of where exactly Ianthe's fingers are disappearing into. 

Corona's enthusiasm for anal never fails to make his cock jump. He's already leaking onto his stomach, aching to be inside her. But all he can do is let his own head drop back against the bedpost and wait. Maybe let some of frustration show on his face. Not that he could hide it, the way it's etched into the twist of his mouth, the furrow of his brows. Ianthe delights in any indication that her torments are working – as much as she can delight in anything that is not necromancy. Or Corona.

Her fingers twist deeper and Corona smothers her moan against Ianthe's lips. Corona's own fingers are tangled in Ianthe's hair and covering Ianthe's hand on her breast. Ianthe is pinching Corona's nipple through her nightgown that is made scandalously sheer through her sweat. The same nightgown makes Ianthe look like an old maid. 

Ianthe is probably the least desireable person Naberius can think of, so he doesn't get what Corona sees in her, but fuck if the sight of them kissing doesn't stir something inside of him every time. When he'd first found out about them, he'd been trying to ignore it, to do what he thought was the only decent thing he could do and pretend he didn't notice. But as soon as _they_ found out he knew, they began staging it so that he would "accidentally" walk in on them more and more often. 

At first it was just harmless kissing, nothing to get excited about – although Naberius did, to his shame, get excited about it. Corona has always been beautiful and he not blind to it. But he had to keep telling himself that it wasn't his place to think of her that way: as a girl, a potential love interest, someone he could pursue. She is his necromancer. Relations between a necromancer and their cavalier are taboo. Everyone knows that.

To his great and growing dismay, however, that was exactly how Corona wanted him to think of her. The scenes he walked in on became increasingly suggestive until no further suggestion was needed. 

It was a difficult time for him, when his instructors demanded perfection from him but the images he'd seen threatened to break his concentration and his composure. He threw himself with heart and soul into his swordplay because it was the thing that best kept his mind from straying to images of Corona with her legs clamped around Ianthe's thighs, their fingers digging into skin, all but clawing at it. When he'd kept his focus particularly well that day, he'd allow himself the indulgence of imagining himself in Ianthe's place, kissing Corona and exploring her body – more reverently, though, and much less like she's his possession.

The reality looked much less reverential in the end. It looked much like it does now, with Ianthe showing off Corona's charms and him so hard he's going to cry – only back then he hadn't been tied to the fucking bedpost. To be fair, back then he wasn't complicit in their game either. He'd still been a good cav who had never gone against custom and touched his necromancer.

The girls have made him shameless with their own shamelessness.

He still remembers the moment his resolve crumbled, the moment he saw Corona's tan breasts, glistening with Ianthe's saliva, saw Ianthe's hand disappear in Corona's shorts. Remembers Ianthe's mocking tone, "Oh, look, he's hard. I bet he's enjoying seeing you like this." 

And he was. He was.

"I bet he wants to fuck you."

He had tried to stammer about his duty, that it wouldn't be right, that he could _never,_ but all he could do was stare at Corona's soft breasts – at her knowing eyes. His mouth was dry, his voice cracking. Not a sound would come out.

To spare himself further embarrassment, he had spun on his heels and fled the scene. He had practiced his sword forms until he couldn't keep his rapier aloft anymore. Because he knew that if he'd stayed a moment longer, he'd walked up to them and he'd join them. And he didn't know how else to handle that realisation. Thankfully, the girls were asleep by the time he returned to the bedroom he shared with them. They were nestled against each other beneath their blanket, as every night, appearing as one shape in the dark. He could only guess at the placement of their hands, the scene from earlier still vivid in his mind. It was enough. He had perhaps the quickest and most mind-blowing wank ever in the shower that night, deeply inhaling the scent of their lavender shampoo. To this day that scent never fails to spark arousal in him.

It's doing a fine job of it now too, hanging almost cloyingly in the air, though to be fair, it's not the lavender that's responsible for his painful erection.

"Can we get on with this?" he complains, just for the sake of complaining. Gives him something to do while they play with each other. After all, he's no longer the wide-eyed youth they could tease into stammering. They saw to that. "I'm getting cold here."

"What do you think?" Ianthe asks. "Do you want to put him out of his misery?"

"Yes," Corona moans against her sister's lips. "I'm ready."

"You sure, doll? You're still _very_ tight," Ianthe muses and thrusts her fingers deeper into her sister.

Corona's eyelids flutter as she presses back against them. "But I want him inside me."

This is their thing or something, talking _about_ him rather than _to_ him. As if he's not even there, as if his opinions don't matter. Or his personhood. He's an object to them, a shield that will protect them, a meatbag to fuel Ianthe's necromancy, a conveniently available plaything to sate Corona's sexual appetites. Not that he's complaining about that last part – or he is, but that's just for show. Fact is, he wants this as much as she does, but appearing too eager means losing face. He'd embarrassed himself enough the first time they manipulated him into bed with them, coming inside Corona in ten seconds flat. In his defense, he'd had months of frustration to blow off by that point and actually getting to sleep with Corona, the girl he'd fancied for much longer than that, was too much to handle.

She's smiling at him sweetly now, biting her lower lip, and Naberius actually finds himself blushing, because he still fancies Corona. When she's crawling over him like this, filling up his vision, he can pretend it's just the two of them, with no Ianthe in sight. But that fantasy is short-lived. 

"Do you have the lube?" she asks over her shoulder before taking off her nightgown.

Naberius hisses. The lube is cold, Ianthe's hand colder as she slicks him up for her sister. It's still weird, even after all this time, that his body fights this. He's submitted to Ianthe chewing the hair straight off his head or biting him until his skin breaks, but add intimacy into the mix and his body shudders in revulsion. He'd prefer to keep things strictly professional between them. Her touching his cock, even if just to help Corona settle onto him is not that. 

Corona fluffs up her sweat-slick hair, then reaches her hand between her thighs to join her sister's in guiding him. And just like that, his heart leaps in anticipation and everything that is not Corona simply ceases to exist. Her eyes close as she sinks down on him, naked and beautiful, her skin glowing golden in the low light. Her jaw goes slack. She looks blissful like that, accepting more and more of him into her body. It's difficult not to stare.

"Oh Babs, that's so good," she moans, breathlessly, and a rush of pleasure shoots through his body to hear her say his name.

He's trembling with the effort of keeping his hips still, of giving her a chance to adjust to his girth and set the pace herself. 

"Wow, that looks so lewd," Ianthe comments almost dispassionately, the way she always does. "You, stretched out like this. I like it."

It never matters what Ianthe says, as long as she asserts her presence. As though he's not supposed to forget who made all this happen by allowing Corona to play with him. 

"Don't be so vulgar, Ianthe."

"You're the one with her cavalier's cock up her ass, dearest. My coarse language only describes what I see."

Corona huffs. "Next time I'm not going to invite you to watch if you insist on being like this."

"Aww, you're not going to do that," Ianthe says and settles against the mountain of pillows at the head of the bed, dabbing her forehead. "You like me watching way too much."

"She's right, you know," he says. Turns out he hates being ignored by the two more than he hates agreeing with Ianthe.

"Don't you start too, Babs."

"You've always liked an audience, princess. Whether it's me watching you two, or her watching us."

"Don't bother," Ianthe says, cleaning her fingers with a handkerchief. "She'll never admit how much that gets her off. All evidence to the contrary."

"I'm going to be cross with you two if you don't stop."

"No, don't be cross with us, darling. Or be cross but do it while riding him. I didn't strain my wrist all this time for you to stop now."

"And we wouldn't want her sacrifice to be for nothing," he says and rolls his hips.

Corona gasps and leans over him, her hair framed in a golden halo. "Stop moving so much before I say you can, or I'll pinch you."

He opens his mouth to remind her that he's tied to a damn bedpost, not much room for him to move in, when she leans back and takes him all the way inside. His teeth snap shut with a click. 

Corona feels divine. There's no other word for it. Ever since their first time together, he's never wanted to sleep with another woman, given the choice. He knows he'll have to, eventually. His parents will decide on a perfect match for him and he'll be expected to continue the bloodline, for the next generation of House cavalier. Until then, he can enjoy this. As much as that's possible with Ianthe eyeing him shrewdly over her sister's shoulder and finding him severely lacking. He'll never be good enough for Corona in her book. He doesn't take it personally: no one is. Or could be. No one but Ianthe.

He'd asked Corona once, in a fit of youthful folly, to abscond with him, to leave the Third House and their duty behind so they can be together. So they wouldn't have to marry people they were likely to hate because the Third House is filled with dreadful people.

Corona had kissed him and said simply, "I could never leave her."

And that was that. Never to be spoken of again.

He's come to live with it, this double life, as he's come to live with everything inside the Third House. He is both cavalier and lover, enabling their relationship as much as participating in it, even though he shouldn't. He no longer agonises over the feelings he should have kept hidden, the different choices he should have made. He's not as stalwart as the knights in the stories. But those knights never got a taste of the princesses they loved. _He_ did. That has to count for something.

It does to him, at least.

Tomorrow, when he leaves this chamber, he'll pretend that none of this happened. That he didn't violate the essence of what it means to be a cavalier by sleeping with his necromancer. Just like every day. It no longer weighs on his conscience the way it once did.

When Corona finally unties him, it's more than just a release. It's a reaffirmation. He is in this. What he's doing may be considered unacceptable and he may have been manipulated into the situation, but it's his choice to stay. He's not going to give this up until Corona says he must.

As the ropes fall away and feeling returns to his arms, he brushes the damp hair away from Corona's forehead and kisses her. She grabs his hair in fistfuls and at this point he can no longer tell if he's pushing her onto her back or she's dragging him on top of her. The outcome is the same: he's making love to Corona where she can clutch Ianthe's hand as he does so. There's no gloating sense of triumph when Corona rakes her nails across his back or bites his neck instead of Ianthe's wrist. He treats every time with her as the last, because he never knows when she might change her mind and decide that Ianthe is enough for her after all. One day it might be.

Ianthe does snake her free hand between them, as though she can't stand his name on her sister's lips and decides she has to get involved. She sinks her teeth into Corona's earlobe and her fingers between her wet folds.

"You're positively overflowing, dearest," she says.

Corona mewls and bucks her hips against her sister's fingers, making him see stars.

"Princess," he groans, and both their eyes lock on him, one set beady, the other gleaming and unfocused.

Corona grabs fistfuls of his hair again as she draws him down for a kiss so deep she might as well be inspecting his tonsils. It does have the intended side effect of lowering his defenses – at least, that's what he thinks she was trying to accomplish. The next thing he knows, she's pushing him off her and climbing on top of Ianthe, kissing her instead. 

Naberius sits back on his haunches and wipes his mouth. His skin is tingling, feeling the cold of Corona's absence even as he's burning up, heart hammering in his chest and breath coming in audible puffs, something it hardly even does during ranking matches. 

He watches Ianthe's fingers disappear inside Corona again and his cock throbs, missing her incredible tight heat already.

"God, Babs," Corona snaps, her voice tinged with an edge of desperation. "Stop staring and get back inside me already."

Ianthe snorts beneath her but says nothing, simply grabs Corona's hips and digs her fingers into her flesh. They're so into each other he'd feel somewhat like an intruder if it weren't for Corona's affirmative moans when he sinks back inside her.

"Yes, Babs, that's it. God, I feel you so deep. It's so good."

His hands brush Ianthe's as they settle on Corona's hips. It's funny that although her presence should feel disturbing – and in a way it still is – it's only right that she's here as well. Every time Corona seeks him out when she's too bored to stay with Ianthe in the library, he feels a strange sense of guilt for doing it behind Ianthe's back. Even though Corona no doubt told her what she was up to, maybe even mentioned it for the sole purpose of getting a rise out of Ianthe.

He may not be particularly thrilled about this constellation, but it's what makes Corona happy and that's enough for him. He's used to it now, anyway. He and Ianthe may never get along, but they can put their differences aside long enough for Corona's sake. Getting Corona off is one thing they can agree on, at least.

"I love to see you get wrecked, darling," Ianthe chuckles breathlessly. Her skin is glistening even more than his own. He's so close now it hurts.

"Don't you dare pull out, Babs," Corona snaps when he tells her as much, muffled against Ianthe's shoulder. "I want you to come inside me."

That command alone is enough to make him come on the spot, but he manages to hold out just enough for Corona to get there first. 

"That's right," Ianthe croons, and he can feel the pressure of her fingers inside Corona as she fingers her to completion. "Come for me, girl."

With a sharp cry, Corona clenches around him and that's all it takes for him to follow her over the edge. Her whole body is quivering against him as he empties himself inside of her. Eventually, Corona sighs and lets herself drop onto her side, next to Ianthe. He barely has time to decide what to do next when Corona drags him down beside them and kisses him until he no longer thinks of leaving them to it. 

They catch their breath like this, with Corona's arms around him and Ianthe's around Corona, and since it doesn't look like they're booting him out of their bed within the next few minutes, he allows himself to relax. He kisses the top of Corona's slick brows and brushes her golden curls behind her ears. Ianthe sighs and rests her head against Corona's shoulder, hugging her close.

It seems as though they're going to let him sleep in their bed this time. With a little manoeuvring of his knees, he manages to get a hold on the blanket and throws it over the twins. Corona might be toasty, nestled between the two of them, but Ianthe is a cold as a corpse even at the height of summer. She's not going to complain about her own body temperature, but Corona will, once Ianthe starts chilling her. Best not to let it get that far. They have something cozy now, after all.

Nights don't always end amicably between them, but if they have a chance to, it's his duty as their cavalier to preserve whatever peace he can.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "After Touching You, I Think of Narcissus Drowning" by Leila Chatti.


End file.
